


Some birds aren't meant to be caged

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: Nightwing (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: BAMF Dick Grayson, Bat Family, Big Brother Dick Grayson, Brotherly Love, Captivity, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Imprisonment, Kidnapping, Protective Jason, Rescue Missions, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 14:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20310775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: When they all somehow get captured, they hadn't expected anyone to come and save them, especially after the fight the four of them had the week before, but surprisingly, Dick was there right when they needed him.And pray for the people that get in Dick's way.





	Some birds aren't meant to be caged

**Author's Note:**

> This was going to be longer (and better) but oh well, this is what you get. Sorry.
> 
> Also, very happy early birthday to my wonderful friend Stell. You don't see my work on AO3 which means I can upload this early, but I wish you a fantastic day and that your life continues to be as awesome as you. I hope you enjoy your birthday present. I know it's not my best and you're not really in the batman fandom any more, but it's the best I could do with everything going on, and I couldn't miss your birthday. I wasn't sure what to write for you, anyway. Happy birthday! I love you!! ❤❤

They had been fighting, because they were always fighting for some reason or another, it was in their nature, but they hadn’t spoken in about a week and a half, but when Tim’s emergency signal went off early in the morning, Jason forgot all about the four-way-fight and dropped everything he was doing to rush towards Tim’s co-ordinates.

What he should have expected was that there was a trap. What he never could have anticipated was that Damian was also there and both he and Tim were beaten and bruised and thrown into a large brick room with no windows and a no doors and a grate for air, and when Jason found them, he hadn’t expected what was going to happen.

He hadn’t known what kind of trap it was, but they must have been watching him somehow because the moment he had found them and entered the room, the door sealed shut behind him, no gaps left to show where it once was.

“What the hell do you think we’re doing here?” Tim had hissed when Jason hurried over to his side to check his and Damian’s wounds.

“Saving your sorry ass, what does it look like I’m doing?” Jason had replied. Tim didn’t comment.

Jason wasn’t sure how long they were in there for, but it couldn’t have been long before the beatings started. Well, it was less of a ‘beating’ as more of them trying to get past Jason, and when that didn’t work, they just kicked the shit out of him instead. Tim and Damian, who had been there for however long, were just so tired after fighting for ages, that they were prepared to just let the guards have their way with them. Jason wasn’t going to accept that.

He had marched into the building without a plan- he never had a plan- but guns full of ammunition and a bag full of clips to spare. He had knives in his shoes and his gloves and everywhere else. His chest shot lightning for god sakes. Even when he ran out of bullets- which was inevitable- he was never going to run out of fight. Empty guns were just as useful as the bullets that they fired.

Eventually, they were granted a little bit of respite, and Jason sunk down beside his brothers. “Does one of you want to explain to me what the hell is going on?”

“What does it look like?” Damian grumbled, his arms crossed over his chest. “We’ve been taken hostage by some sort of maniac for their own twisted enjoyment.”

“Just another day in the office,” Jason joked. He turned to Tim. “What’s the play? How are we doing this?”

Tim readjusted his position, grunting in pain. “I hate to burst your bubble Hood, but there isn’t any play. We’ve been here for hours and we haven’t been able to get out of it. It’s foolproof. We thought that maybe you were our saving grace, but now you’re in here with us, so that’s out of the picture.”

“Hours?” Jason frowned. “What do you mean you’ve been here for hours? I only got your signal about 50 minutes ago.”

Frowning, Tim scrunched up his face. “That’s weird. It should have gone off when I activated it.”

“Wait-” Jason looked between Tim and Damian. “Which one of you has been here the longest. I only got Red's signal, and even that was delayed.”

“Robin was,” Tim confirmed. “He was already in here when they threw me in.”

“Why didn’t your signal go off?”

Damian grit his teeth. “Because I didn’t have it.”

“Why the hell did you leave the cave without making sure your signal was on?”

“Because I was never _at_ the cave, I was on my way home and I got changed in an alley so nobody could see me. Quite embarrassing, I know, and I never want to speak of it again.”

Jason sighed. “Oh, well, that’s just great. Fantastic. Now, we have to rely on someone else to get us out of here, and they won’t be in any kind of rush, because they think only one of us is in trouble!”

Hugging himself closer, Damian grumbled. “Don’t you have those two idiots that hang off your every whim? Wouldn’t they be looking for you?”

“They’re babysitting Lian, and I told them that I wouldn’t need any help.”

“Well, that was stupid of you.”

Tim sighed and thrust his arms out between them before they could get into any more of a fight. “Alright, cut it out,” he took a deep breath and eventually, they turned to look at him. “We’ll just have to wait for Batman to come and get us out of here.”

Rolling his eyes, Jason sat back against his wall. “Yeah, right, because Batman is really going to come and save us. Let me tell you as someone who has relied on Batman to save them before- you’re going to be horribly disappointed.”

“_Regardless_,” Tim interrupted before Damian could take a swipe at Jason. “We’ll just have to fight them off until he gets here. I know we’ve been doing nothing but fighting, but we’ll have to do it for just a little longer because he’s going to take a while.”

Almost a little reluctantly, Damian cleared his throat and kept his eyes down in his lap. “What about Nightwing?”

Jason snorted. “_Nightwing_? He’s all the way in Bludhaven! Besides, if he could make it here before they splatter our brains across the walls, what’s to say that he’d even come? He was part of our fight, you know, the one that made him storm off and not talk to us for over a week?”

“We were all a part of that fight, not just him, all four of us,” Tim said. “And he’s not like that. He wouldn’t ignore the fact that one of us needed help over a _grudge_.”

“Well, he deserved it,” Jason grumbled. “He was being a prick. It’s not my fault that he’s so sensitive.”

Hugging himself closer, Damian made a frustrated noise deep in his chest. “You were being insufferable. I forgot how good it felt not to talk to you for a full week.”

Ignoring him, Jason reached a hand over and slapped Tim on the shoulder. “Hey, you never know,” he joked. “Alfred could be the one who saves our asses. Then whoever the hell is in charge of this operation will be in _big_ trouble.”

That got a smile out of Tim.

When Jason had said that he was a very good fighter, he wasn’t exaggerating, but that didn’t mean that he was impervious to pain or never got tired. Even though with every man that Jason knocked down, every man whose bones broke under Jason’s knuckles and whose blood spilled over his hands, he felt just as much pain and eventually it got to the point where it even hurt to move, and after the latest volley of attackers, he had no choice but to collapse to the ground to just catch a breath. Now he understood why Tim and Damian hadn’t been fighting when Jason had found them.

Sometimes, Tim would stand up to help Jason fight their attackers and occasionally he would fight alone as Jason was too exhausted to keep fighting. He wouldn’t fight for long, he had been there longer than Jason and he was just so tired and so sore that eventually, he would just give up, and the men would just decide to kick them while they were down instead.

There weren’t any clocks in the room and Jason had never really been all that good with telling the time just based off of feeling, but he knew that they had been there for a very long time, days maybe, and he didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t think that they were getting out of there.

He didn’t want to voice it, but he didn’t have to, because Tim did it for him. “Guys, I hate to say it, but I don’t think anyone’s going to come for us.”

And then the world exploded.

The brick wall that used to be a door imploded inwards and the limp, unconscious body of a man was flung into the room with them, bricks flying around the room, and the boys covered their faces as debris landed on them. The room must have been soundproof, because now that there was a huge hole in the wall, the frantic sounds of shooting and shouting and panicked people running were loud in their ears, and it took them a moment before they identified a familiar blue stripe in the writing mass of fighting bodies.

It was all Jason could do to cover his bothers with his own body but he soon realized that he didn’t need to once a familiar face entered through the hole in the wall, blue and black and red, and Dick pushed the hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand, his uniform ripped and his skin bruised, but looking like he could still take on a thousand more men. “Can you stand?” he asked as he stepped over the body on the ground and into the room.

“It took you long enough.” Jason laughed as Dick helped him stand. “I was convinced you wouldn’t have been able to get your ass over here in time.”

“Todd said you wouldn’t come,” Damian said indignantly with Tim’s arm slung over his shoulder. “But I knew you wouldn’t abandon us.”

Dick seemed distant as he glanced around corners and tightened his hold on his escrima sticks, crackling with electricity at his sides. Damian frowned when his comment didn’t get any reaction, as it usually would. “We’ve got to be quick. I’ve taken out everyone on this lower level, but we’ve still got to make it up to the stairs and outside, and I have no idea how many men are left. I’ve got a vehicle waiting outside, but we have to make it there first.”

As Damian helped Tim limp out of the compound as quickly as they could, Dick held an arm out and barred Jason’s way. “Don’t think this means that I forgive you.”

Jason levelled him with a cool, even stare. “I wouldn’t think about it, Goldie.”

Grimly, Dick piled them all into the waiting Batmobile, hiding in the dark, and took them all back to the Batcave. They were all asleep before he had even hit the highway.

When Jason woke up, he was met with the very familiar view of the roof of the Batcave, laden with stalactites and flocks of bats. Beside him were two other cots, occupied by Tim and Damian, and they were both wrapped up and taken care of as if a professional doctor had just swept through, which meant that Alfred had come by. Dick sat in Bruce’s large-backed chair, flicking through a magazine with Superman on the cover.

The others were already awake, and Damian was sipping on a juice box while Tim leant back against the pillows, music blaring into his earphones and a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. “I don’t know what’s worse,” Jason joked as he slowly sat up. “Damian being tired enough to be drinking a juice box or Tim already bullying someone into getting him a cup of coffee.”

Flipping the magazine closed, Dick uncrossed his legs and stood up from Bruce’s chair and made his way over to Jason. Damian reached over and slapped Tim in the shoulder, who ripped his earphones from his ears with a vile scowl. “Yeah, well, they were just kidnapped. At this point, I’m happy to give then whatever the hell they want.”

“I can’t believe father let you borrow the Batmobile,” Damian grumbled, apparently not for the first time if Tim’s eye roll meant anything. “You almost killed us at least twice on the way here.”

“Bruce doesn’t know I took it,” Dick replied evenly, as if he had already had this very same conversation a few times, and checked Jason’s vitals again. “And you were asleep for a good majority of the trip, so if you had died, none of you would have even known it.”

Jason frowned. “You _stole_ the _Batmobile_?”

Dick rolled his eyes so hard that Jason was sure he gave himself a headache. “I didn’t steal it. Alfred gave me permission. Bruce is at a meeting in Tokyo with Lucius. He’s on his way back, his plane should land some time tomorrow.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’s going to be so pleased when comes back to discover most of his children beaten to shit,” Tim said. “How are we going to be useful if we’re all laid up in bed?”

Looking mildly offended, Dick turned his gaze to him, and Tim glanced away. “That’s not fair. I’m the one who got you out of there, the fact that I didn’t get my ass kicked as badly as the rest of you did doesn’t mean I’m not hurt too.”

“You’ll be fine,” Jason grumbled. “I’m not sure what’s hurt more- your pretty face or your giant ego.”

“Yeah, yeah, mock the man who just got you out of there, go ahead,” Dick rolled his eyes as he walked away from Jason’s bed and over to Tim’s. “You know, I could always put you back there if you really want.”

Tim sent Jason a very frustrated look and turned to Dick. “Do you know who it was? Who took us?”

Looking confused for a moment, Dick seemed to realize that he hadn’t actually explained to them what was going on yet, and quickly backtracked. “Oh, right. It was Penguin. He sent a whole heap of his thugs to take us all down, but I had already gone back to Bludhaven, so he missed me. Babs has already taken care of it, and Commissioner Gordon has already rounded them up and sent Cobblepot to Arkham.”

“Well we all know he’s going to find a way to weasel out of there in a couple of weeks, so we can’t relax yet.” Jason yawned, stretching his hands about his head.

“At least we’re free for now,” Tim replied, frowning down at his empty coffee cup. “One less baddie to worry about.”

Dick looked like he was about to reply, but there was a loud beep from his pocket and pulled out his phone. “I’ll be back,” he said, slipping the phone back into his pocket with a serious expression. “Ring if you need me.”

It was then that Jason had just noticed the similar-looking golden bells on the nightstands beside each bed, but before he could shout a witty retort over his shoulder, Dick was already gone, exited the cave and up into the main levels of the mansion. Tim was already back in his own world, his earphones in his ears and his fingers tapping gently on his chest in time to the music.

Damian looked over to Jason, a smile on his face. “I told you Grayson would come for us.”

“Yeah,” Jason replied. Despite their fight, despite everything that had happened between them for the past week and a half, Dick still stopped everything he was doing, to come to their aid. “You were right. He did.”

And Jason was alright with that.


End file.
